Overview
Please Answer the following question as detail as possible
- Explain the significance of Solomon's life with his family, as a free man. What is important to take away about the way in which he was sold into slavery?
- What is important about the different relationships between the characters and their owners: Eliza and her former master, the white cotton picker and Mr. Epps, Mrs. Epps and Mr. Epps for example. How does it relate to the human instinct to survive?
- Expand upon plantation politics (both with Forte and Epps), and the hierarchy within. Is there anything that surprised you about who was in control, and who really was not?
- What varied roles do the women play on the Epps and Forte plantations - both the Black and white women? What about mixed-race women?
- How does the story of Mr. Shaw's mistress and the story Eliza shares about herself early on (in the auction house & at the first plantation), compare to the story of Patsy when Solomon is at the Epps plantation?
- What are the different ways of violence that occur? How does it differ at the hands of men and women?
- Why is this true story important for the topic of American legal history, slavery, and relationships between individuals?